To be continued... Or not...

Artwork by Marguerite Sauvage http://www.margueritesauvage.com/blog/

Will this blog live on? I don't really have this answer yet. Maybe I will go on. I don't think I can still continue to post once a week. But we will see. Or maybe this blog will stop there and disappear into the large comunity formed by internet. I don't know.

Report about the English class of the 2nd semester

Artwork by Benjamin http://blog.sina.com.cn

List of vocabulary that could be helpful for lessons:
-Economics: finance (stock market, money, monetary system); unemployment; vocabulary about variations (increase/decrease, etc...);...

-History: wars & conflicts; industrialisation; transports (boats, carriages, railways); agriculture; names of cities, countries, people, treaties, battles spelt differently than in French; religion; kings & power (different types of monarchs, troubles, rules)...

-Others: ...

Now my comments about the class:

-It would have been better not to choose class hours early in the morning or after 5pm in the

afternoon (sorry, but after 2hours x2 (or 3) of courses, I know I can't concentrate anymore).

-Better to give precise essay subjects, because talking about "ping-pong diplomacy" is a bit too vast for only 2 pages, and talking about our city even orally I personnally find it uninteresting. The subject about the press was good because it allowed lots of discussions.

-The diversity of exercises is good, but spending one hour or two reading one article, even if explaining the vocabulary is tiring and boring.

-Maybe a bit more of books' extracts would be good.

-Watching TV shows for oral comprehension was good, as well as the blog idea to improve the writing.

Du fond de quelle douleur allait-il trouver cette capacité illimitée de créer?

In English: "From the depth of which pain would he find this unlimited capacity of creating?"

This is a sentence by Proust. I found it on the blog of a philosophy teacher: http://hansen-love.blogspot.com/. Actually I like to read what she is writing from time to time, it kind of changes of what I'm thinking about normally. Most of the time, it is short quotations like this one. Simple sentences which seem clear and even obvious sometimes but which can arise a lot of thoughts.

I chose this one today because it echoes my feelings. I used to draw a lot and I had stopped since I was always busy. I draw again since 2 or 3 days now. And it is my way of creating. When I'm drawing, I'm automatically thinking of my drawings as creation because it comes out of me. I reproduce an image I keep in my head most of the times but by making it material, I create it. Anyway. I don't totally agree with Proust. Pain is surely a good incentive to create. To evacuate the pain, you'll try to draw, to write anything. However pain isn't always good for creation. It depends of the kind of pain you're feeling.
If the pain is related to feelings, I will create far more easily than if it is a physical pain. For instance, I couldn't draw for a long time because either I was too tired or because I felt depressed. And each time I tried something, it was wrong. I think we can create related to pain but it will depend on its nature.

Artwork by Lolita Jungle (lolitajungle.com)

Motorcycle Diaries (Carnets de voyage) by Walter Salles

Choose the poster you like better.

The first one is more modern in some way.

The second one depicts the fact that the movie is adapted from a diary relating a trip through South America.

The third one plays with Che Guevara's image.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi & Romain Rolland

Since I talk about Gandhi, I decided to put at least one photo with him on it. This one is my favorite. He is talking with the French author Romain Rolland who fight for peace and for European reconcilation during WWI and after.

Photograph taken in 1931, photographer unknown, public domain.

I did actually forget to talk about Gandhi

After thinking for a while, I did find another person who is as symbolic as Che Guevara. It is Mahatma Gandhi. I should have thought of him earlier since we have a weekly lesson about South Asia but he just seems to have got out of my mind (maybe I just didn't want to think about PSSA, maybe I'm becoming allergic to it). But being a serious person, I can't forget that Gandhi became a symbol in the same way as El Che. Not for the same reasons, Gandhi was a more peaceful guy and a much more down-to-earth person.
However there is not really one photograph of Gandhi that inspired people. And that's my point. For the photographs of Che Guevara and the Afghan girl, they became famous and symbolic due to their portrays and their gesture. It's their expressivness that reached people.
Copyright to oliviakin.

Another symbol

Usually symbols are objects. Sometimes it can be animals or plants. But a symbol is rarely a person.

Indeed a symbol is something that should be eternal and universal and there are few people that are seen in the same way in every part of the world.

However it's different for Ernesto "Che" Guevara. How did he become so popular? I can't really answer this question, I wasn't born the day he died. However I've seen his face and his name used very frequently until now before I knew what he exactly did. For all people he is a hero. The symbol for rebellion and struggle against oppression. It is this way I always perceived him.

I put here the two well-know photographs of him. The first is his portray and the second one shows his dead body as army officials exhibit it a few days after he was captured and executed. It was in 1967. His body disappeared a few days later because they feared that his body would become a relic. But it contributed to make his name last. And when the place where is body was buried was found outa few years later, it actually became a cult object.

He was a guerillero fighting for a goal he could never attain: he wanted to unite all South America as one and unique folk. He took part in many revolts and guerillas, he fought on Fidel Castro's side during the Cuban revolution.

Most of people forgot that he advocated violence as the only way to overthrow a governement and that he should have killed many people.
He is a man that fought for his ideas and died for them. And people remember that. I'm not trying to praise Che Guevara. I'm just interested in him, the way he lived and what made him such a symbol. I'm interested of the way the people all over the world unanimously agree about him when usually for great men there is always an existing opposition. Try to find another man in the world History that had such a influence on people. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci was a great scientist, painter and humanist, but his name doesn't carry as much emotions.
Photographs taken by Alberto Korda on the 5th March 1960 and by Gustavo Villoldo on the 9th October 1967.